NORWALK — It’s the highest honor the president can bestow on a member of the armed forces for valor.

“Very few communities have one hero that has been awarded the Medal of Honor ...” Mayor Harry Rilling said. “Norwalk has two.”

Those two heroes, John Magrath and Daniel Shea, will be remembered this weekend during the annual ceremony at the Shea-Magrath Memorial.

Magrath was the city’s first posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor award for his actions in World War II. Magrath, a member of the 10th Mountain Division, volunteered to act as a scout while stationed in Italy, according his Medal of Honor Citation. With just a rifle, Magrath charged into enemy fire to neutralize machine gun nests and take out men who were firing on his company. After he returned, he ventured back out to collect a report of the casualties in the area and was killed in the line of duty.

Years later during the Vietnam War, Shea, a member of the 21st Infantry, 196th Infantry Brigade, while under enemy fire made four trips into the field to tend to wounded soldiers and then carried them to safety, according to his citation. He made a fifth trip and was able to save another soldier, before he himself was mortally wounded.

Each year, the Norwalk Veterans Memorial Committee takes time during the month of May to remember the sacrifice of the two men.

“This is the month in which Memorial Day is held — Memorial Day is a time when you honor the military men and women who lost their lives in service to their country,” Rilling said. “It’s important because we should not be forgetting our country’s history. We should not be forgetting the men and women who fought hard for the freedoms we now enjoy.”

The ceremony, which takes place at the Shea-Magrath memorial at Calf Pasture Beach begins at noon Sunday, May 19, also serves to remember all Norwalk residents who lost their lives in the line of duty. The committee invites all to join them in remembering the fallen soldiers.